Alex Salmond attacks IFS over Scottish National Party's spending plans after the election

A briefing issued last week by the London-based think tank highlighted concerns around the Scottish Nationalists' spending in the second half of the parliament

Alex Salmond has hit out at reports that SNP cuts would be deeper than the other parties' (Jeff J Mitchell / Getty)

Alex Salmond has claimed a report, which said the Scottish National Party's proposed spending cuts would be deep and long lasting, had "got some fairly simple sums badly wrong".

In response to the report published last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Mr Salmond said that elementary mistakes had been made in calculating the effects of the SNP's spending proposals.

The former leader of the SNP argued that, with the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, they were the only parties to offer an increase, rather than decrease, in public spending and went as far as accusing the IFS of "gross unfairness".

The IFS had said that by saying they would be less austere, with smaller spending cuts, the SNP had a "considerable disconnect between [their] rhetoric and their stated plans for total spending". The London-based research institute added that the SNP's plans implied bigger cuts to spending by 2019-20 than compared to Labour's.

In its briefing, the IFS compared and contrasted the fiscal plans laid out by the four political parties that are widely predicted to win the most seats in the UK general election next month.

Its analysis also highlighted what each of the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP were not talking about during the election campaign.

Mr Salmond went on to say that politicians who believe they can win a political argument by quoting the latest economic assessment were doomed to disappointment, in a warning to the parties claiming that the SNP would oversee the destruction of the United Kingdom.

He added: "Even if they had managed to get their sums right, the IFS have little to say about economics in the context of policies. In the morally neutral world of the IFS, a tax cut for millionaires carries the same clout as pay increase for low-paid workers.

"They look at the balance sheet impact of the policy and nothing more. The focus that is required is not just on Budget deficit but on the deficit of ideas, the deficit of empathy and deficit of imagination which afflicts the Westminster parties and the whole decrepit system that they reflect."

"They are abusing the dismal science to produce dismal politics and a dismal London election campaign. Real economics is about human beings."

According to the IFS, the SNP's spending plans suggest borrowing will fall less quickly than any other party has accounted for.

It said: "In other words their plans as stated imply less austerity than any of the other parties over the first four years of the parliament, but more in the final year."

The IFS told the Independent that it stands by the accuracy of their calculations.